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Shanghai World Expo is coming soon. Hybrids, advanced diesels and green alternatives are pushing aside the traditional displays of speed, a nod to a new fuel-efficient reality for automakers. At present, the industry all together has to show further and faster improvements on the fuel-efficiency side. For example, Beiqi Foton Motor and Xiamen Kinglong Group, which have launched the hybrid buses in some of the big cities in China. According to the development plan, they also will extend their hybrid lineup, which are expected to boost fuel economy by about 50 percent.
Automakers have been testing advanced vehicles for several years, including hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in hybrids, with the hopes that the technologies will improve and become more viable. Sandy Stojkovski, a fuel economy expert and director of vehicle engineering at Ricardo Inc., estimated that more than half of the vehicles by 2020 would need some kind of hybrid configuration to meet the new standards.